Tributes to Jewish Hillel member killed in Kharkiv fighting

A 29-year-old Hillel member in Ukraine was killed this week defending his hometown of Kharkiv.

Volunteer fighter Serafim Sabaranskiy, who worked as a bar manager and loved nature and going for walks with his dog, was killed by a direct rocket hit at night on his unit’s headquarters.

Yulia Pototskaya, head of Kharkiv Hillel, recalled that Sabaranskiy, who died on Tuesday, wanted to protect the city he loved.

“[He] first went to the territorial defence, and then he was taken to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Somehow he was sure that the war would begin.” On 23 February, she said, he “bought all of the ammunition that was available back then in the shop”.

Sabaranskiy’s 21-year-old girlfriend, Maryna Kavun, did not believe that Russia would attack but he “had an incredibly strong instinct”, she recalls.

“I was very angry with him, thinking that the war cannot start, it would be absurd on the part of Russia. I didn’t even want to discuss it. And after eight hours he wrote that Kharkiv was bombed.”

She said that later she was glad that he had the weapons he needed.

Pototskaya says Sabaranskiy blamed only Putin for the war. “He thought the Russians were being zombified. He was saying ‘What kind of nationalists are you talking about? I am a Jew and I exist here freely.’”

In a video filmed close to a place where he later died, Sabaranskiy had said: “What should we be afraid of, except of artillery? We all perfectly understand – let’s be honest – that we do not wage war against Russia, we wage war against Putin. And his soldiers do not want to fight with us, likewise we do not want to fight with them. We just do not have a choice.

“Stories about us being Nazi… My grandmother is Jewish, I often fly to Israel. My friend, here he is, has a Jewish family too.

“We love our homeland. Get out of here with your guns and come back to drink vodka and eat [the traditional Ukrainian dish] salo.”

The north-eastern province of Kharkiv, which has been bombarded by the Russian artillery almost daily for the past three weeks, has paid a terrible price for Russia’s aggression. More than 15,200 civilians have been killed in the region, including 13 children

Friends recall him as a great organiser, a man who loved instrumental music and rock and roll. He lived outside Kharkiv and did not want to move to the city because he enjoyed the quiet life. Yet he was also by nature a fighter. “He went to protect the city, because he could not help it, a friend recalls. “It was his duty, he could not sit back.”

Maryna recalls Sabaranskiy saying he was fighting for the right of every Ukrainian to live in their own country, and build their own world, the way they wanted it.

Hillel International tweeted: “We are sharing our love and our prayers with Sabaranskiy’s family and friends. He died a hero.”